


beached whales, shelled snails

by quiets



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mission Fic, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 21:16:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15470232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiets/pseuds/quiets
Summary: After the Big Shell incident, Otacon is still recovering from E.E.'s death. In lieu of any legitimate coping, he sets out with Snake on a mission to wreak havoc on a server farm, in spite of his friend's better judgement.





	beached whales, shelled snails

For the second time that night, Hal pried the cassette tape from the car’s player to flip it over to its front and loop it again. Every time they had traveled to some yawning warehouse or sprawling base in the past several years together working on Philanthropy, they had played this tape—their lucky tape. It had been the background music to their last mission together, just like any other. Though that mission hadn’t exactly gone to plan (in what was possibly the world’s most pathetic understatement yet), the habit wasn’t one either of them were willing to quit despite the magic of it having wilted at the edges. With tensions so high, it was a necessary comfort in their otherwise uncomfortably silent van.

On a more typical drive, Hal would be practically bouncing off the walls of the car in a flurry of plan checking and re-checking and reminders of what Snake needed to get done. He would list off the various camera positions of the compound, any potential threats and traps he’d detected, complete with miscellaneous sprinkles of knowledge about the area and the operations taking place—all followed by low, focused grunts of acknowledgement. Their current complete lack of conversation was uncharacteristic to say the least, but his mouth remained set in a grim line, eyes on the passing blurs of pine trees that lined the road like soldiers. David had insisted he was in no shape to be back to tagging along to missions yet, and in spite of his stubborn denial of the point, he had no idea if the guy was actually wrong. Attempting to introspect had felt like staring into a fogged mirror at best and slow, dragging torture at worst, so the necessary task had been avoided altogether in the long hours he’d spent distracting himself at a screen instead.

Those long hours, at least, had paid off in the discovery of a massive data storage site. Though it had been some time since he’d had legitimate access to government files and correspondence, it had been easy to stay in the loop, incessantly creeping through any systems he could forge his way into. Most of it was junk, whether it was filler nonsense or congressmen discussing which of their interns was the hottest (Which was almost as disgusting as the actual dirt he could find. Almost.), but whether on a stroke of luck or an act of pity by some higher force, he’d stumbled across something of use. There had been several times before he had seen mentions of a remote server farm belonging to the military’s massive R&D unit, but metadata attached to a notice uploaded for employees of the site had finally revealed its location—a lonely area deep in the woods of the Pacific northwest.

It wasn’t metal-gear-ending knowledge. It wasn’t even save-their-asses knowledge after the mess the Patriots had made for them through framing Snake. But it was something they could cause some massive hurt with, and massive hurt was what Hal needed to deal to the bastards.

Cold fingers tighten where he grasps the edge of his seat, white-knuckled. If he repeated to himself enough that this was a sufficient way to address his problems, then maybe he could lure himself into believing it. Anything was better than sitting in that cramped apartment, eyes fixed on the wall, unable to pry his thoughts away from how gut-wrenching it had been to see Snake round the corner with his sister in his arms, so much smaller than he’d remembered her—

“Hey,” an insistent voice tugs him back to the present. The vague taste of bile creeps at the back of his dry throat, lingering there. “We can turn around. Find a motel somewhere. This can wait.”

“What?”

“You look like you’re about to vomit, Hal.”

“Oh,” he says with a short laugh, though the sound is thin. Behind thick lenses, eyes turn away from a concerned expression, passively watching as the braiding water of a river crosses under them and fades into the darkness. “I always look like that.”

“I’m being serious.”

“You always are,” Otacon points out, glancing back at the man to note the furrowing of his dark brows. “I mean, it’s true. You’re, like, the most serious person on the planet. You’re the king of solemnness. The ruler of the land of sobriety. You’re a living monument to seriousness.”

“Hal.”

“I know. I know.” He releases his death grip on the seat and sits back, exhaling.

If nothing else, he’d at least proven his habit of nervous speech was still present. Though his sense of self felt fractured at the moment, he knew it was still there, albeit in disjointed pieces. And when he talked with David, he didn’t feel quite as scattered as he did at every other dragging point in time.

Unconvinced, but willing to let go of the discussion for now, the older man sighs and shifts his hand to the top of the steering wheel. His fingers twitch against the vinyl surface, probably itching for a cigarette—a habit Hal had finally helped him quit a few months back, after a great deal of convincing. A habit that probably, now, was very difficult not to pick back up again, considering Snake’s face was still plastered on every national media outlet that could get its hands on the pictures.

_War hero turned terrorist_ , or whatever bullshit they were parroting now. It made Otacon’s stomach turn.

“Hmm…,” Snake starts, then pauses. He takes his time, as he always does, tapping out a steady rhythm now against the wheel. “…Can you tell me again about the security in and around the building? How much did you manage to find out?”

Images flash in Hal’s mind of various floor plans and diagrams and schedules he’d scrounged up as a result of many, many hours of mind numbing brute force into the site’s network. “There’s a shit ton of guards, some outside but most of them inside. Um, but I found a couple times where shifts switch out, so that should help us. Cameras are all over the place but I can work nearby to interrupt their feeds, so that’s one less thing for you to worry about. You can expect a lot of fancy locks, obviously. The whole kit and caboodle.”

He takes off his glasses, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Umm…” When he opens his eyes again, he catches David watching him for a quiet moment and falters even after his gaze is back on the road. Desperate to play off his fluster, he grasps for something to say. “It’s an important building, so, ya know. We can expect some big boy security,” Hal deadpans.

The last sentence out of his mouth, though intended as a joke, is slightly shaky in its delivery. He’s reminded (with _pretty_ miserable timing, as per usual) of how often the need to be held had crossed his thoughts in the past couple of weeks—and how often the target of those thoughts had involved his closest friend. It was stupid, especially considering their current circumstances. They had a million other things to worry about, the death of his sister being one of the very last things he had time to attempt to cope with. But he was stubborn, and he wanted to be held, and there was nothing he could do about that. Wanted something more than the fleeting hug that his friend had given him just after E.E. had bled out.

Though there had been times he wondered if Snake felt the same way about him, he’d always figured that if those feelings had ever existed in the past few years, they were put aside for the sake of their work together. Their friendship was a good thing. A _very_ good thing. A much better thing, really, than any awkward human connection he’d attempted in the past. He was terrified to ruin it, and so he pushed those kinds of thoughts to some forgotten corner of his mind.

Or maybe not so forgotten. Whatever.

A mile out from the compound, they pull off to a quiet side road Hal had marked previously on their map. The old van shudders uneasily over the gravel crunching beneath its tires until it comes to a heavy stop on the shoulder of the road, its gray color muted in the shadow of the tall trees. The warm air around them is fresh with recent rain and alive with the humming of summertime life, the song of a thousand little creatures blissfully unaware of corrupt governments or stupid crushes or dead sisters.

…Hal decides that hitting a point where he’s envious of bugs is a pretty impressive new low, and that he’d really prefer not to go down that path.

“Ready?” David asks, hand outstretched with Otacon’s backpack. Reality sets back in, hard, and the queasiness resurfaces. He nods anyways, eyes down on the grass as he shoulders the bag, unsure if he can face that gentle concern without crying.

Now is _not_ the time to be a wimp, again.

They make their way through the woods towards the site together, Hal remaining just a few paces behind the silent footfalls of his friend, clumsy in comparison. It’s nights like these that serve as a stark reminder of the life Snake had lived before they met. After years of cohabiting together in something that could only be accurately described as _domesticity_ , it was easy to forget that he was living with an actual, real life super soldier. He shared coffee mugs and shampoo with a genetically engineered clone—and stopping to think about it made the whole thing feel kind of insane, really.

Insane or not, it had been the best years of his life. The time behind them was the crutch he leaned on when the memory of E.E. made his breath catch, his throat tight. It was a comfort, a sure thing. That had been difficult for them both to grow accustomed to in the beginning, always walking around their apartments like something might break and that looming well of loneliness would overflow into their lives again. But it hadn’t, yet, and after years of learning together to let go of that tension, it was something neither of them would be giving up soon if they could help it.

“Hal?”

He blinks in the darkness, realizing he’s fallen behind in a whirlpool of thoughts. “Yeah, sorry, coming,” he responds in a loud whisper, following David’s path across a low bridge spanning a lazy current of water. The recent rains caused it to lap at the walkway like hundreds of eager dogs. He tries not to look down, not to think of her, grasping onto that mental crutch for dear life. The water is as black as oil in the moonlight.

In the distance, he can make out the lights of the server farm.

**Author's Note:**

> ty for reading!! kudos and comments are always very appreciated. not sure how many chapters this will be yet, but i'm currently aiming for 3-4. with my schedule permitting, i'll be updating every weekend until its finish. :^)


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